Bert Mooney Airport is a public
airport
An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surface ...
three miles southeast of
Butte
__NOTOC__
In geomorphology, a butte () is an isolated hill with steep, often vertical sides and a small, relatively flat top; buttes are smaller landforms than mesas, plateaus, and tablelands. The word ''butte'' comes from a French word mea ...
, in
Silver Bow County
Silver Bow County is a county in the U.S. state Montana. As of the 2020 census, the population was 35,133. Its county seat is Butte. In 1977, the city and county governments consolidated to form the single entity of Butte-Silver Bow. Additional ...
,
Montana
Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbi ...
, United States. It is owned by the Bert Mooney Airport Authority.
The airport name was changed in 1972 to honor Bert Mooney, an aviator from Butte who was the first to fly
mail
The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letter (message), letters, and parcel (package), parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid ...
into
Yellowstone National Park
Yellowstone National Park is an American national park located in the western United States, largely in the northwest corner of Wyoming and extending into Montana and Idaho. It was established by the 42nd U.S. Congress with the Yellowston ...
in 1935. Prior to this the airport was Butte Municipal Airport (from its opening in 1926) and Silver Bow County Airport from 1960 to 1972.
The
National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems
The National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems (NPIAS) is an inventory of U.S. aviation infrastructure assets. NPIAS was developed and now maintained by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
It identifies existing and proposed airports tha ...
for 2011–2015
categorized it as a ''primary commercial service'' facility (more than 10,000 enplanements per year).
Federal Aviation Administration
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...
records say the airport had 30,431 passenger boardings (enplanements) in
calendar year
Generally speaking, a calendar year begins on the New Year's Day of the given calendar system and ends on the day before the following New Year's Day, and thus consists of a whole number of days. A year can also be measured by starting on any o ...
2008, 25,178 in 2009 and 25,433 in 2010.
Facilities
Bert Mooney Airport covers 890
acre
The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial
Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism.
Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to:
Places
United States
* Imperial, California
* Imperial, Missouri
* Imp ...
s (360
ha) at an
elevation
The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § Vert ...
of 5,550 feet (1,692 m). It has two
asphalt
Asphalt, also known as bitumen (, ), is a sticky, black, highly viscous liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum. It may be found in natural deposits or may be a refined product, and is classed as a pitch. Before the 20th century, the term a ...
runway
According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt concrete, as ...
s: 15/33 is 9,001 by 150 feet (2,744 x 46 m) and 11/29 is 5,100 by 75 feet.
In 2011 the airport had 23,934 aircraft operations, average 65 per day: 86%
general aviation
General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations with the exception of commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services ...
, 8%
air taxi
An air taxi is a small commercial aircraft that makes short flights on demand.
In 2001 air taxi operations were promoted in the United States by a NASA and aerospace industry study on the potential Small Aircraft Transportation System (SATS) an ...
, 3% commercial service and 3% military. 36 aircraft were then based at this airport: 67% single-engine, 25% multi-engine, and 8%
helicopter
A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...
.
Airlines and Destinations
Passenger
Accidents
On November 7, 1950, a
Northwest Orient Airlines
Northwest Airlines Corp. (NWA) was a major American airline founded in 1926 and absorbed into Delta Air Lines, Inc. by a merger. The merger, approved on October 29, 2008, made Delta the largest airline in the world until the American Airlines- ...
plane carrying 21 people crashed into the East Ridge of Butte during a blizzard. All on board were killed.
On March 22, 2009, a
Pilatus PC-12
The Pilatus PC-12 is a pressurized, single-engined, turboprop aircraft, manufactured by Pilatus Aircraft of Stans, Switzerland, since 1991. It was designed as a high-performance utility aircraft that incorporates a large aft cargo door in ad ...
flying in from
Oroville, California
Oroville (''Oro'', Spanish for "Gold" and ''Ville'', French for "town") is the county seat of Butte County, California, United States. The population of the city was 15,506 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census, up from 13,004 in the 200 ...
, crashed in Holy Cross Cemetery 500 feet from the airport, killing all 14 passengers and crew on board.
References
External links
Bert Mooney Airport official site
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*
{{authority control
Airports in Montana
Buildings and structures in Butte, Montana
Transportation in Silver Bow County, Montana
Airports established in 1926
Essential Air Service
1926 establishments in Montana